Page 7 - A Complaint is a Gift Excerpt

Introduction 3

the fact that many organizations continue to pay bonuses to their man-
agers based on reductions in complaints. Yet surveys conducted around
the world demonstrate over and over again that companies with the
best-rated service in their industry are the most profi table. It’s really that
simple. And complaint handling is an integral part of that service rating.
It is true that many people and organizations have learned how
to handle complaints bett er. Several large companies have instituted
sophisticated technological approaches to more effi ciently respond to
complaints. And many companies educate their staff in the best ways
to respond to upset customers. But every year, a new group of service
providers show up to work in organizations around the world—fresh
representatives who haven’t had the advantage of the training off ered by
their employers. (Given the high rate at which call-center staff leave their
jobs, they probably wouldn’t have much use for that knowledge in any
case.) Every year, new types of complaints are presented by consumers.
Eager and desperate managers somehow continue to delude themselves
into thinking that the best tactic is to eliminate all the problems that cre-
ate complaints, as if zero defects is actually att ainable. And today, twelve
years since A Complaint Is a Gift hit the bookshelves, more and more
complaints are made public on the Internet, posted in vitriolic tones by
dissatisfi ed customers.
Because of what customers are forced to endure, many call-center staff
regularly have to serve unpleasant, upset customers whom they personally
did nothing to create. Yet to be good service providers, they must be able
to calm these customers down and deal with them in a way that makes
them want to return to do business again at some time in the future.
Unfortunately, many staff take customer bad behavior just as personally
as customers take the bad service they have been off ered, and staff defen-
sive reactions leak out onto customers.
Is it any wonder that most call centers have such a diffi cult time hold-
ing on to staff unless they off er the best-paying jobs in the area? Th is rapid
and regular loss of staff requires constant hiring of new, untrained staff . As
a result, many call centers do not have staff who know how to eff ectively
handle complaints, let alone understand that a complaint is being deliv-
ered unless it is spelled out with the precise words “I have a complaint.”